A training scheme that was set to create a career ladder for care workers and address the acute shortage of nurses in care homes, and care workers, has been axed as a direct result of chancellor George Osborne’s spending review.

According to The Guardian, the scheme was due to start in the new year, but last week the £178k funding required was withdrawn. Cancellation has caused dismay in the care sector. Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England, which represents the main care home chains, has said: “The care sector is in crisis, with a crippling shortage of nurses leading to the closure of nursing homes just as demand starts to soar.”

The scheme would have trained care assistants for a new role to take on some of the tasks of nurses, Green said. “By cutting the funding allocated for this crucial project, the government is turning its back on the elderly and dooming people to a grim future of unintentional neglect.”

It is estimated that care providers will need to recruit up to a million more workers over the next decade to cope with growing demand. But low pay is endemic in the sector and turnover of care assistants, eight in 10 of whom are women, is running at 19%.

The care practitioner idea, set up by Elizabeth Care and the University of East London, was intended to address this problem and was due to enrol its first 75 care assistants in January. Six other projects that have lost funding include schemes to develop opportunities for hospital cleaners and homecare workers.

At the local level, we at Absolute Healthcare appreciate how difficult it is to recruit dedicated, skilled care workers into the sector, and keep them. We offer all our staff extensive training and career development in order to sustain a pool of talented and reliable local people.

But we urge those in power to reconsider some form of training scheme that helps to promote care work as a rewarding and skilled career path for young people. Otherwise the alternative will simply be a rising demand for home care, without the staff resource to deliver.